2010 NHL off-season and draft thread

Thought this would be as good a time as ever to start this thread now that the cup has been handed out.
Will throw a bone to the Southern Ontario SportsJournalists.com members, as Dion Phaneuf is about to be named captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=324333

Should be interesting to see him in a leadership role after his attitude and clash with teammates is a big reason he is rumoured to have been shipped out of Calgary, at the very least he needed a reality check or to be knocked down a peg, now he is being empowered as the face of the biggest team in the NHL.

Taylor Hall will be the number one selection, but the Oilers and Bruins might work out a trade. Hall wants to play for Boston and his agent is Bobby Orr.

I personally believe Hall is the more talented player out of the two.

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Everything I've read is that Hall may be more talented now, but his style of play makes him very injury-prone, and that Seguin projects to be the better player long-term. Having not seen either of them play (there's not too many OHL games on TV in Indiana ), I have to defer to the "experts."

Either way, Edmonton & Boston are both going to end up with very good players at the top of the draft.

As an Oilers fan I would like to see Hall drafted, he is the more dynamic of the two and insists he can play centre as well. But what I really like about him is that he has always stepped up on the big stage be it the Memorial CUp or the World Juniors or the OHL playoffs. Not sure I can say the same about Seguin, he disappeared when the two went head to head in the playoffs this year — yes Hall was surrounded by the more talented group of players, but it wasn't as if Seguin was surrounded by a team of plugs a number of them should be drafted in rounds two through four this year.

Mind you I have never seen Seguin play and Hall only a handful of times on TV, so I will defer to the experts on this and trust that either way the oilers will be getting a hell of a player.

I will say this, however, there is a lot of talk about the Oilers trading down with the Bruins and picking up an extra pick or prospect, but that is mostly media speculation. There has been little to no indication which way the organization is leaning although a number of local media guys are pushing for Seguin.

Hall also stepped up his game at the World Juniors, grant it they didn't win the Gold Medal, but he still had a great tournament. Seguin didn't even make the team.

Once again, I am not taking anything away from Seguin, I think he's a terrific player and I'm no Hall fan boy by any means but I've watched these guys at least fifteen times each and when you really pay attention to the their games and study them then you come to realize that Hall is a better player.

I know some mock drafts have Seguin ranked number one overall and I know they know more then I do, but in my mock draft I have Hall first and Seguin second.

Chicago has about two weeks to clear $6 million or so in cap space just so they can send qualifying offers to all of their RFAs. Then they have to clear even more money if they want to actually sign them.